There were plenty of hurdles for Ackermann Group, Messer Construction Co. and Xavier University to overcome to make University Station a reality.
Dobbs Ackermann, CEO of Ackermann Group, along with his CFO, John Wendt, and Bernie Suer, senior vice president of Messer, told the story of what it took to bring the project together at Wednesday night’s Urban Land Institute Cincinnati event, Real Deal: University Station.
The $54 million mixed-use development sits on 15 acres near Xavier University in Evanston and Norwood. The project is being developed by an entity called Danamont, which is led by Ackermann Group and Messer. The 315,500-square-foot first phase includes 225,000 square feet of residential space with 480 student beds, 46,000 square feet of office space and 39,000 square feet of retail space.
“We really saw this largely as a way to work through relationships,” Ackermann told the crowd of about 100 inside a soon-to-be-finished retail space at the development.
The project did not go through the traditional request for proposal process, Ackermann said. Instead, all of the parties involved focused on an alignment of expectations and team chemistry to make the development a reality.
The parties were able to work this way because of the level of trust that had been built between Xavier and Messer, as well as the trust between Messer and Ackermann Group.
A number of factors came up that made this a challenging project, including one of the worst winters in Cincinnati’s history. Suer said the project lost 27 days in winter.
Danamont also had to work with two municipalities, as well as Norfolk Southern, which has a railroad track that runs through the site. And a portion of the acreage was a former environmental clean-up site, so if the builders found anything while they were working, everything stopped to check the dirt and makes sure it was OK, Wendt said. In total, nine spots needed to be remediated.
The project itself was one that had been looked at before but for various reasons didn’t get anywhere. After getting an idea of what Xavier wanted to see on the land, which it owns and is leasing to the developers long term, Ackermann started to get a sense for what should be on the property.
After a market study of student housing around Xavier, Ackermann said the project would support 400 beds. Instead, the developers took the risk and built 480 beds at University Station. All of the residential spaces are full.
And all of the office space was pre-leased long before construction wrapped up.
Now, the focus is on filling the retail portion of the project. About 46 percent of the retail space is leased, with announced tenants such as Graeter’s, Starbucks and the 11,000-square-foot Xavier University Bookstore from Follet Corp. Ackermann expects the remainder of the space to become an entertainment district with an emphasis on restaurants and entertainment concepts as well as some additional service retail.
A building going up at the corner of Dana and Montgomery avenues is being designed for bars and restaurants.
As for the remainder of the project, Ackermann sees a lot more room for office development in phase two. There is room for about 250,000 square feet of additional office space. One of those office sites could also become home to a hotel. In total, University Station will be a 600,000-square-foot development.